Talking Europe devotes a special programme to levelling up – efforts to reduce inequalities and disparities in the European Union. Featuring extracts from our own reporting from around the continent, we take a comprehensive view of the EU's cohesion policy with Elisa Ferreira, the Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms. She insists that levelling up "has really worked", but says that "this does not mean that everything is perfect". She also urges member states to reflect on the political cost of the continuing imbalances between European regions.
Ferreira tells Armen Georgian: "We just published a staff document which shows that when regions are kind of forgotten, when they're left behind, also politically, they tend to feel that, 'well, if the global economic system is to complex, too sophisticated, if I cannot fit in, if I cannot survive in it, then I’m against it.' So countries have to really reflect on the cost of imbalances. If we want our democracies to keep running normally, we can't leave people behind."
Amid criticism from the European Committee of the Regions that cohesion money has been used for emergency funding, rather than for long-term economic recovery, Ferreira responds: "Overall, about 10 percent of the cohesion package was used for emergencies, and I think it was the right thing to do. The truth is, if we hadn't done that, some regions would have collapsed. Particularly those that didn't have health infrastructure. We responded to Covid and paid for ventilators. But we also supported jobs and small companies, which would have collapsed otherwise. We helped municipalities with the influx of Ukrainian refugees. We helped with the increase in energy costs. But I don't think we need to change the funding rules."
Addressing the water crisis in Guadeloupe, which our Europe team has reported on, Ferreira says: "I can tell you that we are very willing to provide support. But you need local capacity in preparing projects and implementing projects. I am very glad that in this little film you have shown one can see the efforts that France is making to locate the right technical capacity. Because we cannot take over from France and go directly to Guadeloupe."
Programme produced by Perrine Desplats, Isabelle Romero and Juliette Laurain.
